Dawn of a New Day
by HalberdGenesis
Summary: An indirect sequel to Lens of Truth. I try to update as much as possible, but it does get pretty sporadic. Based on the BEN Drowned creepypasta and ARG. This series tells the story of the characters from the ARG, and my interpretation of what happened on their end. REVIEW and enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's note: I consider this a continuation of Lens of Truth, but also as a separate entity. The Lens of Truth was an experiment in experience writing and Stream-of-consciousness. This is a continuation of the same ideas, but with a shift in focus. I will be using what I learned from Lens of Truth and the constructive criticism from you guys (here's hoping I have some reviews by the time I post this). Enjoy- Halberd._

_April 25th, 9:00 am._

{Click}

Victim was found this morning… shit… Victim was found on April 25th at 6:15 a.m. in the Westford Pond out behind the Westford Bait and Tackle Shop by two men who were fishing at the time. Cause of death appears to be asphyxiation, as no wounds were found during the autopsy. Worth noting, a nine millimeter pistol was found near the body. One bullet was fired, and ballistics found a matching bullet embedded in the wall of the tackle shop. Whether or not the boy fired the bullet remains to be seen. Articles of clothing… oh, boy. Victim was found wearing a brown hoodie, jeans, a T-shirt with a photo of the moon and a US Army gasmask. Yeah. One lens was shattered and painted around it was some kind of white, spiky magnifying glass… thing. The body has not been ID'd yet, we have had a few possible sightings, but nothing useful. Investigation will… Can you turn that damn music-

{Click}

_Dawn of the Second Day day_

_Time Remaining: Too long._

My life began the way it ended. I felt water, and I felt hatred. But I no longer had a direction. Hate pervaded my mind, aimed at nothing- no...aimed at everything- for the first few seconds, and then the memories returned. His smile. Her passive, constant gaze. The defiance and naivety of the Children, like little lambs, wandering aimlessly toward the inevitable… slaughter. The word and its implications dawned on me for the first time. Mindless suicide yearning for the illusion of freedom. Where would that leave them? Where would they end up now, I asked myself. Where am I now?... Oh, God where am I now?

Then came realization. Then came insanity.

_Dawn of the _

_Time Remaining: Do you hear something?_

Someone's here. I hear my name from the surface periodically, but it is intermixed with something else, someone else's name. Link.

No...

He has no right. He is bound by the rules of the game. He wants another day, another chance. Another lamb. A pathetic naive creature, eyes full of wonder, mind full of hope. Really, I shouldn't be so angry. But I saw something else. I saw that he can lead me out of here. And like a little lamb, he doesn't even know what awaits him. I took it upon myself to enlighten him. I will enjoy this. After IIIIII years, I will be free… damn. I'm beginning to sound like them.

The memory resurfaced again, right on time. I'm honestly surprised that he had this little effect on the cycle. I've made the decision to wait until he finds me.

_Dawn of the First Day:_

_72 Hours Remain_

The cicadas were chirping indifferently, their noise drowning out any thought in his head. He watched in silent, inarticulate horror as the body of his closest friend, his blood brother, slowly disappeared into the murky depths of the lake. Matt had just killed a human being. He was shivering uncontrollably. He remembered his only thought before tackling Ben into the lake: _save the Father._ How could he kill Ben with such disregard, without any thought to his own safety, or the memories he shared with Ben? He looked slowly over his shoulder at Mr D. A new thought occurred to him. How far down the rabbit hole had he gone? Then his world erupted into a torrent of guilt and despair, and he shut down completely.

Spencer was in charge of dropping Matt off at his house. He carried him to the doorstep, where Rosa was waiting. Matt had regained consciousness halfway through the ride home. They were silent. Spencer explained everything to Rosa. Her only reply was, "I'll take care of it".

_70 hours remain._

"Who can I trust?" "You can trust me. You can trust all of us." "What do you see for Ben?" "He's not through. Not by a long shot." "Anything we can do to stop him?" "...It's out of our hands. We'll need to reach out, there's more to it than us. It goes beyond the order." "Who else is involved?" "...You don't want to know." "Rosa-" "Him. The first one who died for the order." "Is his prophecy involved?" "I can't tell." "...I understand. Keep this to yourself." "Of course, Father."

The Father, Mr. D, left without a word. Luna whispered to all of them that night. They all agreed that the message was incomplete.

_Do not look into the eye of the storm. _

_Do not face the_

_Dawn of a New Day_

IIIIIIIII

I spoke to him. He doesn't know it's me yet. He will. He must meet me of his own IIII will.

Then he will know fear.


	2. Chapter 2: Ye who enter shall not leave

...Thank you all for opening yourselves up to me. You didn't have to do that. Really, you shouldn't have. Thanks to you I can finally be free from all of this...

Yours,

IIIIIIIII

Never before have I been as satisfied as I am today. Two days ago, I stepped in to the very nexus of rampant ignorance, and today, the lambs have invited the wolf into their fold. The counter resets. We begin again today, on a larger scale than before. I will hunt the ones who wronged me down, tear everything they stand for apart, and as sky crumbles around them, they will realize that this was all inevitable. You can't fight fate.

_Dawn of the Second Day_

_48 Hours remain._

Last night's prophecy was troubling to say the least. Certain members, Father included, had reported hearing more to the message. References to Ben. It had been almost five years since he drowned. Rosa had done a good job of throwing off the investigation, and it became sort of an unwritten rule in the order not to mention him. Indeed, Mr. D had only shared this information the people who had witnessed Ben's Ascension.

_He will grant what has been requested_

_The world will burn_

_He returns from the murky depths_

_And shackle us all with the chains of fate_

The website was almost finished. The pages were password protected now, and all that was left to do was to set up the guestbook. Matt rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. It was 12:34 and the contact page was still having problems. It didn't help that he kept feeling like someone was reading over his shoulder. It didn't matter. He got back to work, and within the hour, It was done. He posted a confirmation message on the main page, and almost immediately fell asleep. Before he did though, he took a last look at the moon. Recently it had begun to look larger. If he turned his head a certain way, it almost looked like it was below cloud level. He had yet to mention this to anyone, but now was really not the time. He laid his head on the desk and closed his eyes. It had begun to rain.

_40 Hours remain._

_A storm is brewing. Fight with every last ounce of your strength._

Matt woke up to sound at his door. Stumbling out of his chair, he made his way to the front door. Trying not to look too groggy, he swung it open to reveal the empty porch. A vague feeling of disappointment washed over Matt, but it was too early in the morning for anger. Matt glanced up and started. The moon was definitely closer. He had heard about this phenomenon before, but apparently it only lasted for a few hours. Why was it making him so uncomfortable? But he knew that the moon was only part of it. Memories resurfaced. He and Ben, fixed parallel to the surface of the lake, hovering for a moment it seemed, his adrenaline throwing him into the Theta State. In that moment, a moment that brings enlightenment to most, he felt absolutely blinded by rage. While he was operating completely on instinct, Ben was, for the first time, seeing clearly, or so he claimed. Then, breaking the surface of the water, holding the heretic down- that was his thought process exactly- then the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach that never left, no matter how dim it was, it never, ever left.

He shut the door and went back to his computer to check the number of hits. Glancing over his notes, he saw that, last he checked, there were 30 new accounts since launch and 107 hits. He pulled up the stat page and… 217 new accounts, 1063 hits. "What the hell…?" He checked the guestbook. The first few comments, two Children coordinating some school shooting, seemed normal enough. But then… something else. The discussion shifted. People began discussing some "Jadusable" thing- no. Jadusable was apparently a person. Something else caught Matt by surprise: They were talking about Ben. They wrote it as BEN, all caps, every time to the point where Matt determined that it meant something. He was about to call Rosa when he noticed his own username: Ifrit. The users in the guestbook were all collaborating to find out how to contact him. Sure enough, a new message appeared:

User:_Shinigami_red_

"Okay, we found him. Before everybody jumps at the email link, lets keep this civilized. No more than maybe seven people messaging him at a time. We don't want to overload him. Transcribe each of his answers because we'll need to keep this all on record for later. That timer we found on the BEN contact page says we've got about 40 hours left until… I'm not sure, but if what happened in _the game_ is any indication, it can't be good."

Less than a minute later, Matt got an email. Then another. Then another. Too many, too quickly. He clicked "Reply All" and told them to ask one question at a time so his computer wouldn't explode. They obliged. The first question came in after a few minutes of deliberation on the guest book. It was from Shinigami.

"I need you to tell me about Ben. Who was he, and why is he doing this?"

Matt was taken aback. How did they know Ben? Why were they acting like there was some kind of danger?

"Ben was a Moon Child like me. He drowned a few years back during his Ascension. As for your second question, I have no idea what you're talking about."

More discussion in the guestbook. Then,

From raidermags:

"Are you aware of the danger you're in? BEN is free. He killed/imprisoned Jadusable and now he's coming after someone named Matt. We need to save him."

That response raised more questions than answers, but he held his tongue and explained to them that _he_ was Matt. At this revelation, they panicked. They warned him that BEN would be coming for him soon. He turned his head.

From Shinigami_red

Matt, try to stay calm. We'll think of something, but until then, _don't do anything stupid_. We don't understand how BEN operates, but it'd be safest to avoid any sites that BEN has overtaken, and as far as we know, that may be all of them.

From Ifrit

Give me a second, someone keeps knocking at my door.

From Shinigami_red

NO!

_Ifrit is not online. _

From Shinigami_red

…

_Ifrit has met a terrible fate._

From Shinigami_red

Abort mission, everyone out, now!

_Night of the Second Day._

_36 Hours remain._

They are gathering their meager forces for war. Thirty-six hours until apotheosis.

Tick-Tock.


	3. Chapter 3: Luna Shine

Alex Soilere had not been at the lake when Ben was killed. He was lying in a hospital bed, an IV in his basilic vein, feeding him a slow drip of sedative as he strained to hear and comprehend Her whispers. The next day, he was discharged from the hospital, and a week later he stared, completely silent, at Ben's body being buried at the Ian J. Kana memorial cemetery. As they lowered the casket into the ground, he knew. In a way they all knew, even those with the soft smiles, silently congratulating Ben for reaching the Great Opening, for resting with his Mother, they knew that Luna had abandoned him. Intuition was something that came with the territory, a gift from Luna at the threshold. But as he tossed in a shovelful of dirt, Alex knew that this would shake the Order to its core. There was no way it couldn't, the truth would come out eventually. It was just a matter of time. The sun cast an orange glow as it rose over the treeline, rays flying skyward in a brilliant display. Then, between the glow of the sun and the shade of the trees, a harsh minty green wave streaked across the sky, freezing in a leviathan shape beyond comprehension, a cloud of light, then disappearing just as quickly. Alex smiled to himself. A new day.

Night of the Second Day

36 Hours remain

Like ants after a heavy storm, running about rebuilding the colony. Scrambling, trying to find some order to the chaos. With this, I call check.

The sun was going down, and the rain had lightened up somewhat. As Alex pulled his car into the back lot of the Theater, he took another look at the sheer brightness of the moon. It was uncanny. Next.

The brief respite from the rain was just that-brief- and soon the rain came down harder than ever. Making a mad dash for the back entrance of the theater, Alex clutched the book he was reading, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, against his side. He shut the heavy iron door behind him and stood there for a moment, dripping wet. The room was quiet and dark, with only the EXIT sign casting a green glow onto the floor beneath it. Past the sign was a small dumbwaiter for transporting heavy props to the stage, and another heavy door with a heavy, rusty padlock. Alex would have preferred the room either be completely dark or completely light. The EXIT sign's light hit the various props and torn-up pieces of railing, casting eerie shadows on the wall. Then he heard it. A thud, like a bag of sand hitting the ground. It came from behind one of the risers. Immediately afterwards, there was a scraping noise, friction on the worn, scoffed, Thirty-Plus-Year-Old floor. A shadow on the wall began to move. Alex froze. Out from behind the risers crawled what would haunt Alex's nightmares for the rest of his life.

It stood just under 7 feet, but it was hunched over, almost in a mobile fetal position. Every part of its body seemed to sag and cave in on itself, like a scarecrow partially filled with sand. Its skin, if you could call it that, was green and loose, and its eyes were like tiny white dots. It reached out and slammed its massive, gorilla like hand onto the floor with another thud and pulled itself forward. Its arms seemed to connect to each other at the point where the shoulders should be, forming a huge bump, and they were linked to the body by a strip of veiny flesh. But the worst part was its face. It was below the "shoulders", and it seemed to recede into the body. The face was sagging and unresponsive, with only a dull look of horror on its face. It spoke to him with a deep, moaning voice.

"He... found us. You are... not safe. He has… eyes… everywhere" The thing struggled to lift his hand, then pointed at the wall behind Alex. "Play it to remember me".

There was a figure that seemed to be leaning against the wall. Suddenly, the EXIT sign exploded in a shower of sparks. The room was completely dark for a moment, and then, behind him, the thing screamed in what sounded like pain. It sounded like a dying whale. The sound filled the room and Alex collapsed, hands over his ears and shaking. Finally it stopped, and the lights, all of them came on. Alex looked around. The beast was nowhere to be found. He looked back to his left, where the figure had been standing, and immediately doubled over and vomited at what he saw.

It was a person, pinned to the wall by a steel pole. His ribcage had been ripped open, blood and viscera covered the floor beneath him, and his hands were in a position to suggest he had died trying to hold his organs in. On his face was a gas mask, with some white design painted around one of the lenses. And, most chilling of all, on the wall adjacent to the body was a message scrawled in blood: LUNA SHINE, the traditional greeting of the Moon Children. Alex stood up weakly and took a few tentative steps to the body. He reached out, trying his best to keep his hands from shaking, and unbuckled the mask. It fell to reveal the face of Matt Hubris, eyes hollow, skin pale. He could hear something, a small chuckle, and he conjured up an image of the father.

Alex ran. He ran because he knew whoever had done this was still out there. He ran because he thought he was going crazy again. And he ran because he began to hear music.

Dawn of the Final Day.

24 hours remain

Luna Shine.

{Transcribed from the Journal of Alex Soilere}

Play it to remember me… what could it have meant by that? Thinking back on it, it didn't seem like it wanted to hurt me. It tried to warn me about something and pointed out Matt's… body.

Oh, god.

Matt's dead.

I told Rosa, and the order's working overtime to try and contain it. Something's going on with the site, massive influx of users. They seemed to know that Matt was dead. The Father has ordered me to investigate. Meanwhile the moon gets closer and closer. I can't go to sleep. There's always something outside of my window. It just stands there on the sidewalk across the street, motionless in a different place each time. I know if I go to sleep it will do to me what it did to-

{End}

A massive tremor had hit out of nowhere. Alex was thrown out of his chair into the wall. When everything stopped rattling, he opened his eyes. Part of the ceiling had collapsed, landing in a large drywall chunk onto his desk. The wall surrounding the doorway had cracked, and the doorframe had given way to form a parallelogram, creating an M.C. Escher type of effect. Upon standing, Alex felt a sharp pain in his ankle and fell again. He stood up again, slowly this time, and limped out of what remained of the door.

Crawling out into the stairwell leading down from his apartment building, Alex could hear car alarms blaring in the distance. He pulled himself onto the black grated stairwell and began to crawl forward. He hadn't cleared the landing, however, when he heard the 50 year old steel begin to groan under his weight. Before he could react, the stairwell, weakened by the tremor, dislodged from the building and fell with an enormous crash. Alex lay on the ground, a bent piece of steel cutting into his arm, and began to lose consciousness. Before him stood a figure, wavering like the surface of a lake. He bent over, displaying his mask- the mask- to Alex, and said, "You can't fight fate", before Alex went limp.

Happy Halloween, everybody! Thank you for all your support. I'd like to give a special thank-you to YoungLink'sGirl473, or whatever the hell her name is, she was the one who inspired me to write this anthology. Hope you enjoyed my first experiment with horror, 'cause I was working overtime to get this out in time for my favorite Holiday.

With thanks, regards, and a shitload of commas, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Halberd


End file.
